Ubiquitous Release
by rancidstarlight
Summary: The tama has been completed, and Kagome and Inuyasha must come to terms with what will be done with the jewel, along with whatever relationship that could be. Gobs of angst. Enjoy. Possible lemons in future.
1. Disclaimer, dahling!

Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha, as much as I would like to. xD  
  
A bit of a background story on how this fic came into existence was that a good friend of mine and I had a roleplay that we both realized was surprisingly good. Each post was over two paragraphs, analogies and multi- syllable words galore, so I decided to make it into a fic to see what it would do to the public.  
  
I really feel all mushy inside with how you all are liking it. It is a very depressing fic indeed...but I do adore it nevertheless. I've always been a fan of Inuyasha x Kagome, but there are so many things that hold them apart...that usually isn't delved into in other fanfics – they go straight to the happy ending.  
  
I've always had a problem with things like that. xD  
  
This is my second fic – my one previous is rather, er, juvenile, and I do like this one much more. ; I suppose I grew a bit, eh? I'm thirteen years old, as is Krim, and clearly she is roleplaying Inuyasha, I am roleplaying the lovely pseudo-miko.  
  
Reviews!!!  
  
From: Woven Bamboo Pattern ?userid=632010)  
  
OMG THAT IS SO SWEET PLS UPDATE SOON  
Top of Form  
  
Bottom of Form Hee. Thanks...;;;;;;  
  
From: Ama (Shades of Oblivion ?userid=134239)  
  
OMFG, this fic is so depressing .  
  
But a good sort of depressing. The sort of angsty depressing that people can't get enough of because they've all been through it, or have dreamt of going through it, or forced it upon themselves for their own sick, masochistic needs.  
  
The details in this fic are astounding, and heartwrenching, and I really like the analogies and metaphors you come up with. Keep up the good work. =)  
  
And you noticed!!! –gives you a blue cookie- Thank you very very much, Ama! I should worship you, but I'm lazy. xP  
  
More reviews will be posted when they come into existence! Tally ho! 


	2. Does Anybody Even Notice?

Why was she always thrust into the role of the steady headed youth? You know, the classic one in B movies? She is the heroine – the nondescript one with longish shortish forgettable dark brown hair and warm intelligent roundish slantish forgettable dark brown eyes and the unblemished peach skin and the unglossed full pale-ish pink-ish lips that has such a terribly Dark past. Her parents were killed in a Very Bad Car Crash and she was haunted by their memory ever since. She had a group of friends Who Did Not Understand Her and yet her grades were always Very Immaculate. Proper nouns and all. She was the last to die. She was the first one to scream when she saw her Horrendous but Very Kawaii Boyfriend strung up on a rather nasty looking wire from a rather nasty looking tree as the Very Mean Ex- Girlfriend looked on amusedly. Of course, she was the murderer and within the last five minutes she would creep up behind Miss Heroine with one of those Classic Glints in her eyes and then that would be that. That would /always/ be that.  
  
/This is where I say I've had enough/  
/and no one should ever feel the way that I feel now./  
/A walking open wound, /  
/a trophy display of bruises /  
/and I don't believe that I'm getting any better./  
  
She didn't feel very stable. Everything in her life was wobbling as it always had...every single vase in the antique shop had been once glued and thrice duct taped, feigning perfection but ultimately and obviously quite broken. There was a thick layer of dust at the corner of the ceilings that she had always thought she should rub away...but the dust implied that time had passed in her little sanctuary, and that was true. Her world had always been poisoned with uncertainty that no sixteen year old should ever be able to possess in such a death grip. Scratches on her shoulders that continually ached and a head in the clouds that perpetually absorbed a headache as if her brain was a sponge and throbbing pain was soapy water...those were the unchanging bits of fluff in a world of variables. Was she forgetting someone? Oh, no, the hanyou she so secretly adored had long since lost his title of a regular. When her old self had suddenly come back to life, a la Night Before the Living Dead, he had suddenly become a wisp of smoke. So very grand to watch as it floated about in the wind until you tried your damned best to grip it and your fingers slid through like water...he was a distraction, no more, no less.  
  
Lying, always lying. I have hypothermia, I have influenza, I have chronic bronchitis and a small case of advanced diabetes...that's why I don't talk to you anymore, that's why I don't return your phone calls or care that your dog died. I'd like to care, but I go back in time to go see that terrible boyfriend that you hate so dearly – you know, he's half dog, and I'm not sure what breed, and I don't think he loves me. But you don't need to know that, your nails need to be done and Hoyjo needs to be giggled at and pinched and teased while all along you're trying to make him be your friend in my favor because you want me to have company in place of that bloody horrible guy I talk to you every so often about and have suddenly stopped to do so. That's because I'm going to have to leave him soon even though I care about him, that's because I don't want to see him make a mess of himself because he loves the person I could never be because I don't intend to die and come back as a zombie. For once living is my curse. Or has it always been? Gomen nasai, sumimasen, didn't mean to bother you, I'll see you next week. Lying, always lying.  
  
/Waiting here with hopes the phone will ring /  
/and I'm thinking awful things /  
/and I'm pretty sure that few would notice./  
/And this straightened mouth/  
/is starving for an argument./  
/Anything at all to break the silence./  
  
So beautiful, so dreamy. Kikyou was a lovely portrait of the classic Feudal priestess, so sweet and so very cold and all at once comforting and then all at once brittle and frightening. Had she once been a happy person? A kind person that smiled? The few smiles she'd seen had been so forced they made the valves of her heart itch as if she'd seen them so many times before. They had too much in common. They had too many THINGS in common. Except Kikyou had been somewhat too inclined to wish on every shooting star that she could be a woman and not a miko, and that the one she was so in love with could be a man and not a boy. Had she been so trusting in her love, thick like blood, strong like wine? Or had she had her doubts, like she herself always did? He liked her enough but could he love her? Ever...even if Kikyou could just go and die like she had secretly wished on her own shooting stars...would he be a step away or a mile? No hoping and no planning, no thinking about the future. Not until you find it in yourself to hand over the completed tama, Miss Heroine. It resided in her pocket, the one inside of her skirt that was used only for small trinkets.  
  
Spare change, demonic jewels, eh.  
  
Exactly what was she going to say? I've been hiding this from you, so here you go finally. And now I'll leave so I don't have to see you start killing people, thanks, bye, and just for future reference I've been madly in love with you since the middle of my freshman year. Sayounara, forever and always, I think I left some ramen at Kaede's hut. She ran it in her head and wondered when she had changed and become so caustic. Maybe when she grew up. Her mother said people became cruel because cruelty was a shield, but perhaps her shield was from herself as it never broke past the surface. She would never say that to him. She would smile and be pleasant unless he annoyed her; she was always smiling because the stable ones had nerves of steel, or in her case, of a rather nice kind of copper. Kagome swung her legs back and forth on the brim of the well in her own time with pollution and crazy lunatic serial killers with guns rather then crazy lunatic I Don't Really Mind S'long As They Go Screaming killers with youkai and swords and that wonderful sort of craziness truly reserved for those splendid old B movies.  
  
/Wandering the house /  
/like I've never wanted out /  
/and this is about as social as I get now. /  
/And I'm mentally throwing away the letters that I am writing you/  
/'cause they would never do,/  
/I would never do./  
  
Kami, she loved that place so much. It smelt like flowers even in battlefields ridden with the lost...it had the air of innocence even when all was pulsing with corruption. But it was going, correct? Because she was tearing herself away, correct? She was the reincarnation of the love of her life's love of his life and it wasn't working out in the Harlequin SuperRomance sort of way that had cost her mother at least three hundred dollars in the course of her infatuation with the series that had occurred so swiftly after her father's death. A snowflake lazily dawdled in through the creakily slightly opened doors to the chibi shrine and rather pointedly landed on her nose, almost as if some malign force was trying to make her stop wallowing in her strange brand of self-pity so she could leave and get yelled at for being late for her own departure. The irony. Kagome Higurashi was sorely wishing that she had never grown up. Peter Pan was a Disney movie, not something for Miss Heroine to try and embody, but she could sure as hell hope could manage to. Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.  
  
'You follow the same life'. Like a path, as if her existence was the freeway and she was in Kikyou's turned-in used Volvo. She'd been told that countless times as if it made a difference. Being in love didn't have a catch (usually)...you didn't stop just because the first person had screwed up royally. Every remake was a better model, eh, to keep in with the car analogy? The baby had been right, more right about her than anything. The darkness in her heart had come from the one that had given her this exact TYPE of heart in the first place. Kikyou was why she was bitter and tired and wanted to give up but knew that would be against every fiber of her being. She was an optimist with a foggy mind...new weather forecast and she'd be A-OK. She jumped. She wondered if the weatherman was predicting showers. Kagome landed on her knees as she always did and felt the calluses bellow in agony as they kept the eternally ripped flesh intact. She hauled herself up with her arms lined with hard muscle from using the bow ever so often as always. Her palms gripped the sun warmed stones as if she was a professional rock climber.  
  
/So don't be a liar,/  
/don't say that "everything's working"/  
/when everything's broken. /  
/And you smile like a saint /  
/but you curse like a sailor /  
/and your eyes say the joke's on me./  
  
Hah. Sure she was. Kagome pushed herself over the wooden edge made of the same textile as Goshinboku and wondered where the infamous half-demon was. He usually would be staring at her from perhaps two feet away, glaring in that uncannily elderly way of his like a puppy awaiting a master that it entirely realized didn't much mind about its feelings and had forgotten about it entirely while writing mid-terms and fighting off annoying questions from kids who thought she had emphysema. He always managed that glare that mutated into a tangent of curses and questions and the underlying bit of rejection– mutation because evolution took too long. And she would wait and sigh and command and walk towards the village. A never ending cycle, like the changing of the moon and the passing of the tides. He was nowhere in sight, and so the living miko played a random Namie Amuro song with short, gnawed fingernails atop the framing of the Bone-Eater's well.  
  
The jewel felt as if it were burning a hole into her skin.  
  
Classic. Very classic. You read about things like this is stories all the time. The good side going strong, fighting with all their hearts and triumphing over the evil for the most part. The protagonists on a mission, but goofing off and laughing anyway. Returning home victorious more often than not. But somewhere, just under the happy surface, evil brewed. The darkness grew and grew, bursting out of the shadows to attack the good side once more. An epic battle, the main character, a tragic one with a black past but a great heart, rising up and striking the final blow. If only it were like that. He was no hero, not by a longshot. Everybody seemed to think so, seemed to expect great things of him. But not all was as it seemed.  
  
He was the image of the Tragic Anti-hero. Long, silver-white hair, golden amber eyes, ivory skin, tall with a dark past. Hated by the world around him, but always, /always/ seemed to kill the demon and save someone's life. He was the kind of person people cared about despite themselves. That's not to say he didn't care about them too, though he certainly pretended not to with all his heart. His heart was a dangerous thing, leading him astray and constantly getting himself in trouble. Loving two women at once – ironically, one the reincarnation of the other – and never being able to choose. Yet everyone looked to him for the fight, the strength, expected him to hand demons defeat on a plate. It wasn't that easy, winning all the time. It hurt; had he not been hanyou, he'd have perished long ago.  
  
/Let's talk this over/  
/It's not like we're dead/  
/Was it something I did?/  
/Was it something you said?/  
/Don't leave me hanging/  
/In a city so dead/  
/Held up so high/  
/On such a breakable thread/  
  
He didn't feel strong, wasn't as sure of himself as everyone else was. He didn't feel like he had immeasurable amounts of strength that would destroy any demon in his path. Sure, he could destroy. He could annihilate. It just depended on what he was fighting. But he couldn't fight his feelings, the uneasiness inside of him that kept whispering his weakness in his ear. Hanging on for dear life to a once reality that clearly wasn't to be. Once, he could say she had been his jewel detector, that he needed the miko or he'd just go on killing random youkai and never get anywhere. The thick rope that had bound him to that thought had long since worn away, leaving him with something much more fragile. His very heartbeat seemed to be telling him to give up, to drop into obscurity. He was no good now. The world didn't need him.  
  
In the few weeks since the Shikon no Tama had been completed, the hanyou and the miko had grown apart. There was no longer a reason for her to return, no more shards to search for. There was one lingering thing that could keep her back; what to do with the Tama. Though he was sure she'd end up keeping it in her era, if only to keep it away from the youkai in Sengoku Jidai. The miko might return, was sure to return, to see Sango and Shippo and Miroku, but not necessarily him. She seemed to be avoiding him whenever she came...or had he been avoiding her? Search as he might, he couldn't find a single reason for the drift, couldn't see why they weren't talking.  
  
If he wanted the silence to end, why didn't he just talk to her? But what was he supposed to say? "How are you, and why haven't you been talking to me?" He should ask himself why he wasn't talking to her, but then again, he couldn't find that answer. And she was surely going to ask him that. Perhaps he was avoiding fate, the fate of the jewel, other than her. Talking to her meant discussing what to do with the Shikon no Tama, which meant making a decision, which meant she could go back to her time and never come back once they were done.  
  
/You've got your dumb friends/  
/I know what they say/  
/They tell you I'm difficult/  
/But so are they/  
/But they don't know me/  
/Do they even know you?/  
/All the things you hide from me/  
/All the shit that you do/  
  
He'd overheard Sango and Kagome talking once, about Kagome's era. Sango had asked about her friends, and she'd said a lot of good things. She complained, too. About how they would nag at her to leave her abusive "boyfriend" every time she came home with wounds, how some other guy kept asking her to go out with him, never backing down once he was rejected. He'd felt bad, hearing all they had to say about him, not because he cared what they said, but because of /why/ they'd said it. Being near him was painful to her, always sticking her neck out to help him.  
  
The hanyou was sure the miko would use the Tama in a good way. Heal people, make someone rich, something helpful like that. His own dreams of using the Tama were never going to happen. Once he'd wanted to be a powerful youkai, but not any more. Far back in his mind, in the part that was still awake when he became full youkai, was tortured when he realized what he was doing. To live in constant torture was not what he wanted. Killing people was not what he wanted. He wanted to live, free of fear. Perhaps even with someone who loved him. Someone he loved, too. Like fifty-some odd years ago, when Kikyou had had her whole soul, free of Naraku's tainting. Was happiness so much to ask for.  
  
But with the silence between himself and Kagome, he could never ask her to make /him/ happy with her single wish. No, he really couldn't.  
  
/You were all the things I thought I knew/  
/And I thought we could be/  
/You were everything, everything that I wanted/  
/We were meant to be, supposed to be/  
/But we lost it/  
/And all of the memories so close to me just fade away/  
/So much for my happy ending/  
  
All in all, no matter which way you looked at it, he was much too dangerous to be with, anyway. Once, maybe, what he'd truly wanted had been in reach. In those days when he and the miko depended on each other, needed one another to get through. Even now, he fought an inner battle every time she left. Follow her, or not to follow her? Wait or not wait? He watched her whenever she was in Sengoku Jidai, even when she thought she was alone or was talking with someone else. No doubt the hanyou was protective of Kagome, keeping an eye out as second nature. But they could never be together. His greatest fear was a very possible reality.  
  
One day, he could turn his claws on her. One day, he could betray her against his will, and then it would be all over for everything.  
  
So he would watch over her, watch as she went on to live life while he slowly wasted away. She would go on, living in her world and fulfilling her life there like she never could here. And he would watch her, like a shadow, or a guardian over their charge. He would protect her; even if she didn't, couldn't love him, even if he wouldn't be able to make her happy, he could at least watch her as she became happy in her own way, as she surely would. And the hanyou would slowly fade...  
  
Golden eyes watched as the water stirred around his red pants, causing them to float around in a hypnotic fashion. The orbs held little light, little sign of life. His sleeves, big as they were, swirled as well. The pond was close to the Goshinboku, surrounded by sakura trees, each of them swelling with pink petals. A few fell into the water, rippling the image of his broken expression. The hanyou that stared back at him wasn't the one he was used to seeing; even in his own eyes, he saw pain. A few tears, too, though they hadn't fallen just yet. The water came almost to his hip, numbing his legs.  
  
Right then and there, he realized something.  
  
He didn't know himself anymore. 


	3. Darkened Meeting

Oh, very few people knew themselves. It wasn't anything new. You could know the surface of yourself – your favorite color, what you would eat, if you were for or against capital punishment – but when it came to certain things, everyone was rather opaque when giving an answer.

Kagome had already come to terms with not knowing herself anymore – not understanding why she felt the way she felt, if there was a name for the sickening lurch she got so often nowadays – when Inuyasha would look at her and she knew that he knew. Lying, always lying, always those terrible lies that were so foreign and so painful on her swollen tongue.

She had never been a liar; she had never cheated at Dominos or done anything that wasn't at least moderately politically correct. Sengoku Jidai had slaughtered a great deal of THAT, but she never lied. Not to the blatant extent of which she was bloody swimming in. Inuyasha knew – of course he knew – he wasn't stupid – of course he wasn't – and she was feeling bad for no reason. Except for the fact that she was a terrible person that should be put to sleep, euphemized, murdered, set on fire, something random and unpleasant in that sort of category.

Deserved it? Maybe not, maybe not /really/, but Kagome felt just bad enough to expect a bolt of lightning at any moment. Her ballad stopped its bedraggled play, the unfinished notes hanging in the air like stagnant gas. With a sigh she stood, arms crossing over her chest as she walked with the façade of one who /wanted/ to be judged and tried guilty, just so she would not feel that he was being kind.

Letting her tell him on her own time and all that. She wanted to be yelled at for once. Because she had done it all wrong, tipped over an already fragile Eiffel Tower cultivated entirely of toothpicks and Play-Doh, and smiled painfully to muddle everything over.

The trees looked almost sinister, teetering between familiarity and the unknown. She'd been in his forest countless times, known it well enough to never get lost, but still it was frightening. Don't stop walking, darling, a big scary youkai will eat your liver for breakfast.

And she saw him.

Standing in the pond as if he intended to walk all the way in and hold his breath like she used to when she was little – until dots swam in front of her brown oculars and she felt dizzy and broke for surface. But she would run in, happy, smiling, laughing, as Souta watched and her mother shook her head disapprovingly. Her hand reached out, almost in greeting, one of those childish hellos if one didn't want to utter the sentiment, but then thought better of it and returned it to its comfortable spot across her chest.

They didn't know themselves; they didn't bloody know each other.

And still the wheel turns.

But still her mind was in another place, a cushier one, with velvet lining and a little jukebox that played Unchained Melody on a loop, although all she really wanted to do was cry even with her dry eyes. Kami, he looked lovely right there, despite being so far into the water, despite the sakura blossoms floating about like in some cheap movie during the depressing love scene..

He'd catch a cold...never mind being a hanyou.

"Inuyasha?"

Reality. This evil concept everyone was so keen on wrapping their minds around. Without it, things could be different. Solidity and structure could be there or float away, like driftwood on the water. Pain and suffering could blow away like leaves in the wind, but happiness and warmth could go along too. Like Pandora's box, reality was hated, but there was that bit of good that was so needed, all the illnesses had to be dealt with.

Dealing with the reality of lies and broken dreams, however, was not part of the hope that Pandora had found at the bottom. He'd done his own share of lying, definitely, but he never imagined Kagome lying. Never. He wanted to badly to always believe her, to know that all she told him was the truth. But no one can only tell the truth. There would always be the little white lies. Like telling someone you couldn't go to their party because you had other plans, but in reality, you really didn't want to go. Like telling someone their new hat or outfit looked good, when they really didn't, but you didn't want to hurt their feelings either. Like putting up with a friend's boyfriend you aren't exactly fond of and never saying anything bad about him to her, when in actuality, you hate the guy. There was one Kagome's friends needed to grasp, though one couldn't blame them for worrying.

Just staring as the water shifted endlessly, carrying pink petals every which way and distorting images, there was a part of him that longed to dive in. To make a big splash and see just how far down he could go, if he could touch the bottom and still make it back up to the top. A horribly dangerous endeavor, depending on the depth, but that's what made it fun. The thrill of literally having the breath stolen from your chest made the gulp of air you took at the top all the more sweet. The realization that you could have died but clearly didn't. A child's game, for if a parent or adult was watching, they could be saved. Then again, if you were alone, you had only one person to count on, and that was yourself.

It took the hanyou a second or two before his normally sharp ears picked up the miko's voice and his nose her scent. Perhaps the numbness in his legs had spread, or perhaps he'd enjoyed staring at the shifting waters, so much changing and writhing as the thing people called reality, he had let all else slip away. No matter, he'd heard now.

Inuyasha turned about as one condemned, unable to erase the look in his eyes. He half ridded himself of it, to the point where he looked half there, half somewhere else. She looked no different, smelled no different, and in just saying his name, it was hard to tell if she's spoken the same as well. The bit of him that was still a child wanted him to wave and smile and greet her the way he always did when she'd been gone for what seemed like forever, but he just couldn't. For whatever reason, he just couldn't.

"Yeah?"

His tone wasn't harsh, more like what you'd expect from anyone else; simply curious.

/"Yeah?"./

That was worse. Perhaps a smile – a begrudgingly happy wave – oh, they would've been so welcome. She would've adored it. It would've been astoundingly better then just the look on his face. As if he was the one doing everything wrong. Damnit, she should've came and gave him the tama and left. She couldn't control him. Let him do what he wanted, let him BE what he wanted, let him ruin all eternity or kill everyone who she said she cared about – let him have free will and all the things that being a ningen entitled. Hah, unless becoming a youkai destroyed that privilege. Her empty eyes, pretty as ever and warm as melting chocolate but just about as complex as an expensive doll's that was given only on Christmas.

The beautiful confections you saw so seldom, made of porcelain and glass and all of those fragile sounding textiles that your juvenile hands would graze over, not caring, naming it before you knew it and loving it before the wrapping had even half come off. She envied those dolls, the empty shells, so pretty and /meaningless/. Lacking, always lacking. If one didn't have meaning – as her mother had once said in a sudden bout of dwelling in the gloom-ridden past – they were nothing at all. To be nothing must be splendid. No responsibilities, no half-demon looking at you as if you were the one to start scorning, and no sinking feeling though you are not the one in the water.

"Konnichiwa."

Oh, great. Oh, five stars. Oh, curl yourself into a ball and die. Inuyasha had never been someone she'd been uncomfortable around. He'd never really been someone she avoided. And there they were. Things changed, things convoluted, and with a mixture of shining smiles and nice posture, she could pretend that things were the same. The bickering they had nowadays was so strained ... she didn't know how far she could go, how much she could pick, how close to the surface she had to stay. And before -- !

The past was not something to be dwelled on. It is something to stick into an expensive frame and stroke lovingly in the moments that you don't find yourself swamped in work, or swamped in your /life/.

She looked at him without reservation. Every flaw was magnified in her strange muted stare, nauseating, but quite worthless in retrospect. Those flaws were what she loved, right? She liked the jagged edges. She would tell her friends that, and they would look at her as if she was an idiot. Not exactly complaints – not when she would speak to Sango about her friends – rather how she hated how they couldn't accept that she wasn't stupid. She wasn't about to go running headfirst into something made of acid and lined with sharks that had lasers attached to their foreheads and a taste for human flesh. Not that she hadn't done it before...but couldn't they trust her? To know what she wanted?

/But no one knows what they want. You don't know who you are, so how can you know what you desire?/

Which of the bold-faced lies would she use? How are you? What have you done today? Is the water cold? Are you going numb? She would like to be numb, not feeling anything except the prickle of her blood that wanted rather fiercely to gain a bit of heat. Any standards...any casual replies? Or would she be truthful. /Truthful/. Thus not lying, and thus not feeling nauseated each time her mouth opened and a serpent-like falsehood escaped. I missed you, and I'm right in front of you. I'm missing /you/. Not the porcelain doll. I like flesh and blood, I like the person who I knew for a year – has it been a year? And they're dead, or gone, or hiding, or on vacation – it hurts. And I miss them desperately, for they're the one I changed so much for in the process of getting the tama. Tell me what you want. I don't have the right to explain that /your/ desires are wrong.

Ah, if he leapt into the water now, he would not be alone. Kagome would be there to save him.

Had he been able to see his eyes from her point of view, he would have wondered who he was kidding. Trying to look happy, like everything was alright, when it so obviously wasn't. But he couldn't see his eyes; he could only see hers, all glossed over. Like a puppet, waiting for its strings to be pulled and someone to direct it on where to go and what to do. Eyes that were forced open each morning, having a neutral outlook on the world before it was even entered.

Sometimes he was like that. A lot. Usually. Waking up and dragging himself to a stand. Groaning and insulting without any true feel. He was being himself out of duty, being insulting and intolerable because if he wasn't, people would worry. For once in his life, he didn't want other people to worry. They had other things to worry about after all. All that piled with his problems would be too much. Oh, yes, that's too bad that your good friend said they hated you and meant it, and, oh yeah, did I mention I think I might be dying of a broken heart? No one would thank him for that.

Once upon the happy times, Kagome had made him smile – or want to smile – the second he saw her. He felt what she felt. He was afraid for her, felt like crying for her, would have jumped in the air and whooped if she was ecstatic. But today, he couldn't smile. He couldn't laugh. Hell, he was surprised that he could even breath. She looked like she'd lost everything, from her soul out. And maybe she had. His own heart ached for her, ached for her smile or her laughter or even the way she said, "OSUWARI!" whenever he pushed one too many buttons.

And there was nothing he could do. Not in his condition, where he could feel his heart cracking a little more as he took each watery step toward the shore. Every step brought him closer to her, every step echoing in the vast abyss that his heart had become. Perhaps it wasn't his ears and nose that had gone numb with the water, but his mind and his heart. How he wished bringing the life back into Kagome was as easy as diving in and yanking it out, like when the remote fell behind the couch and seemed stuck there until you hung upside down from the back and reached through the dusk bunnies to fish it out. But nothing was easy. Not anymore.

He stopped coming toward her a few feet away, not wanting to drip all over her like people are prone to do when they're standing too close after being in the water. The hanyou took another stab at attempting to smile as if nothing was wrong, but it just kind of flickered at the edge of his mouth before disappearing again.

"Konnichiwa, Kagome. Did you want me for something?"

Well, she'd said his name like a question, hadn't she?


	4. Foreign Unfamiliarity

Tell him that, just tell him that. That your heart has already broken and that it's been residing in some sort of preserving goo...that it is hanging suspended beneath your ribcage, all of those nice little dreams floating around with no protective encasement. No scratch-resistant surface, not anymore. She couldn't die of a broken heart, she was long since gone. Smiles were easy, laughter was easy – she could give him happy, she could give him bloody ecstatic if it would wipe the look off of his face. That was her skill – that she could be all grins and giggles and inside be shattered, held by very thin wire only visible if you looked just closely enough.

She didn't like knowing that she could let herself drop so far.

That she could allow herself to become so vulnerable.

"Oh, iie."

No, stay in the water, keep your distance. Don't look at what your shard detector has become, just because she wanted to squeeze a bit more time out of what was an already exceedingly limited warranty. Of course she knew nothing lasted forever, but she wanted more. To pretend that she could be strong enough to say what she was supposed to say. Or, was it to forever remain thrown to the side, collecting dust and moths and little nests of daddy long-legs? It would be nice if she knew the way that things were supposed to happen, rather then allowing all to go remarkably awry. Stay in the water, keep your distance. I don't want to see what you've turned into, even before you made your wish.

How could you die of a broken heart?

Was it your actual heart that did it? Did it break and the shards embedded into your kidneys? Your lungs? Your very /soul/? Did it pierce all...and without an antidote mutilate everything within? How painful, how exquisite, how nice to know what had hurt you so deeply already killed you in the end. Or did your heart merely shrivel up? Into nothing, into crushed /nothing/. Her eyes panned to the side, to the roots of another gnarled tree, not to the dripping hanyou that she didn't want to see. Not now, not for a few more minutes, or millennia.

The ruined puzzle was so hard to smash together after years of misuse, soggy and torn. Bending the pieces till they fit – always bending those damn pieces – and pretending that everything actually worked once you got some tape and super glue. Kagome felt so horribly tired.

He sounded like they were in school together – she had asked him for tutoring or something, and he had forgotten what she'd needed in the first place. Almost as if he wanted her far away, weary and tired. Did she sound like that? Oh, Kami, was her resolve breaking? She wasn't going to falter. She would hand him the tama...and that would be that. As always.

"Genki desu ka?"

She didn't really hear what she asked. It was a machination of her mind, the wheels turned and out popped the question. How are you doing? One thing down, handing him the demonic tama over yet to go. Oh, why did it feel so very heavy? It would be funny in a sickening way if the jewel actually broke through her pocket despite its diminutive weight, all gaudy and obvious on the earth. Funny in retrospect, but not at the actual time. For if it happened, Kagome would fade ever so immediately.

Hah. Wanted him for something?

Of course.

Piece me back together, why don't you? Make me not feel like this. Make me believe that I am as horrible as I sense I am. Yell at me, argue with me, call me names, /hurt/ me for all I care. Make me feel something other than the fabricated bits of nonsense my conscience is cultivating so I don't spin into utter oblivion. Let me not believe that once you get the tama, you will disappear. Do what you want, but just don't leave me be. Not after you let me care so much.

Her fingers twitched.

He looked off to the side, his hand automatically moving to his head to scratch a non-existent irritation. What was he supposed to tell her? The truth, or just an empty lie to make her feel a bit better? He could say he was fine, but the lie was be so totally obvious it would just be an insult. But how could he tell the truth? Things are okay, you know? I just can't find it within myself to live without you. Every beat of my heart reminds me over and over that without you, I'm a shell. Oh, yeah, that was the way to go. Just lay out his heart for her to walk across, informing him with pitiful eyes that she just didn't feel the same.

"Er..."

It wasn't really the heart that killed you. The heart broke, and something else would finish you off. Like AIDs; it wasn't the virus that killed you, it was the sickness that you just couldn't fight after it came. He couldn't raise that iron barrier to protect his heart from pain when it was virtually shattered. No, he had to just stand there while it was battered and bruised, crushed under the heel of every day life.

The trouble was that he cared too much. It would've been so much easier if he didn't give a rat's ass if she was happy or not. Couldn't give a second glance if he shoved the jewel in his hands and ran like there was a fire. She'd melted his heart of ice, the heart that had become cold after Kikyou's supposed "betrayal." But a melted heart was an exposed heart these days. If only he was as selfish and arrogant as people said he was. If only.

A half crazy, half stupid idea formed in his mind. Maybe, just maybe....

"Kagome...Can I....hold you?"

It would've been an insult, but, alas it would've been a comforting insult. It would be Inuyasha acting like himself, not this new mannequin that could talk and walk with all the human annotations, although desperately lacking in other senses. It would make her able to say, 'No, you aren't fine.' And allow her to fight with him like she used to, that easy, mildly comforting sort of fighting that would only go so far only so often, and then, of course, the rosary was always there.

When she gave him the tama, would the rosary be destroyed for lack of necessity? He wouldn't be able to come to her, and she unable to come to him...unless she kept the tama.

Their tether would be cut.

Oh, am I the one that is hurting you? Aren't you the one who kept me here all along? I could've stayed away...left you shardless...but I never did. You aren't piecing me together, you realize. I am a thousand fragments now, and you've just been staring at them for the past two weeks. Has it been so long that I've been lying? Pretending? Does everyone know? Have they been merely been humoring me? Splendid, marvelous.

I lied for my sake. I am selfish -- I am not half so holy as others make me out to be.

We had something in common now, didn't we? Kikyou and I...we wanted to keep you, so we put our hearts on the line.

Doesn't it make you feel special?

Callous, hard, cruel -- that was how she felt inside. That was how she was probably /making/ herself feel. A pause -- a break in her internal rant. She blinked at him as he asked, wondering if it was a strange sort of joke made by some odd hallucination in her mind. A hologram, or something. No. The way in which the question was stated told otherwise. And she wondered rather blankly as to what she was supposed to do.

She would do what she wanted - in the rare moment that she did happen to know what she wished. The young miko took a few small steps toward him, seriously expecting the ground to cave in.

Thump, thump, the jewel against her leg.

Thump, thump, the bedraggled beating of her heart.

If only both of those thoroughly annoying noises would stop.

"Hai, Inuyasha."

How odd of him, to ask that kind of question. Why had he? There was no regret, no wave of emotion that told him to laugh and tell her he was joking. There was no hesitation in his movements as he reached out to her, pulling her closer and holding her like he had nothing to lose. Secure, yet still relaxed. The hanyou came to the realization of how much smaller than him she was, how much shorter. His arms encircled her, the overlarge sleeves nearly making her disappear. His head bent down, inhaling the strong scent of her hair and whatever it was she used to wash it.

No, no regret at all. As he sank in, letting the knowledge that he'd have to let go eventually, golden optics closed. His heartbeat was as hollow as ever, the cracking as it split in half almost lengthening. He could end it all right here, steal the jewel and run off, never have to see her again. The fragile string that held them together would be severed, and she'd never have to see him again. But what would he do with it? He'd seen what the tama could do; all who used it ended up dead or tortured, no matter how they tried to justify its use. He couldn't just drop it somewhere; someone, anyone could pick it up and they'd be right back to square one. He couldn't keep it; it would take him over, like it had done to everyone else. A risk he couldn't take.

Tell her, right here, right now. Tell her everything, something inside him said. It wasn't one voice; it was a mass of voices, of all the people who knew them. Sango, Kaede, Shippo, Miroku. Even a bit of himself was talking with the others. How did they expect him to say it? Kagome, I've been in love with you for....I don't know how long. Every time you leave, I die a little bit more. Then he'd be lost. He couldn't ask her to stay; that would be too selfish, even for him. She had a life that Sengoku Jidai wasn't a part of. He knew that. And he had a life here. Not that his life here meant anything anymore; the taijiya and the monk were together, and happy. Shippo was content to live with Kaede. He just stood on the sidelines, trying to fit in like a donkey in a herd of horses. He only half fit, but not quite enough to stay.

Inuyasha took a deep breath, clearly feeling his lungs fill and empty. He couldn't cry anymore; his eyes were dry, devoid of anything to cry. He'd done his share of weeping before hand. It wasn't the sobbing kind, like what you saw in movies or read in stories right before the weeper was rescued and they lived happily ever after. It was the silent crying, the kind you did when you couldn't find it in you to sob, or like when you stared at the moon and it was just so beautiful you couldn't say it. The kind that fell down your face slowly, but never seemed to end either.

"Gomen," he said quietly without letting go.


	5. Brackish Rainfall

It would've been an insult, but, alas it would've been a comforting insult. It would be Inuyasha acting like himself, not this new mannequin that could talk and walk with all the human annotations, although desperately lacking in other senses. It would make her able to say, 'No, you aren't fine.' And allow her to fight with him like she used to, that easy, mildly comforting sort of fighting that would only go so far only so often, and then, of course, the rosary was always there.

When she gave him the tama, would the rosary be destroyed for lack of necessity? He wouldn't be able to come to her, and she unable to come to him...unless she kept the tama.

Their tether would be cut.

Oh, am I the one that is hurting you? Aren't you the one who kept me here all along? I could've stayed away...left you shardless...but I never did. You aren't piecing me together, you realize. I am a thousand fragments now, and you've just been staring at them for the past two weeks. Has it been so long that I've been lying? Pretending? Does everyone know? Have they been merely been humoring me? Splendid, marvelous.

I lied for my sake. I am selfish -- I am not half so holy as others make me out to be.

We had something in common now, didn't we? Kikyou and I...we wanted to keep you, so we put our hearts on the line.

Doesn't it make you feel special?

Callous, hard, cruel -- that was how she felt inside. That was how she was probably /making/ herself feel. A pause -- a break in her internal rant. She blinked at him as he asked, wondering if it was a strange sort of joke made by some odd hallucination in her mind. A hologram, or something. No. The way in which the question was stated told otherwise. And she wondered rather blankly as to what she was supposed to do.

She would do what she wanted - in the rare moment that she did happen to know what she wished. The young miko took a few small steps toward him, seriously expecting the ground to cave in.

Thump, thump, the jewel against her leg.

Thump, thump, the bedraggled beating of her heart.

If only both of those thoroughly annoying noises would stop.

"Hai, Inuyasha."

How odd of him, to ask that kind of question. Why had he? There was no regret, no wave of emotion that told him to laugh and tell her he was joking. There was no hesitation in his movements as he reached out to her, pulling her closer and holding her like he had nothing to lose. Secure, yet still relaxed. The hanyou came to the realization of how much smaller than him she was, how much shorter. His arms encircled her, the overlarge sleeves nearly making her disappear. His head bent down, inhaling the strong scent of her hair and whatever it was she used to wash it.

No, no regret at all. As he sank in, letting the knowledge that he'd have to let go eventually, golden optics closed. His heartbeat was as hollow as ever, the cracking as it split in half almost lengthening. He could end it all right here, steal the jewel and run off, never have to see her again. The fragile string that held them together would be severed, and she'd never have to see him again. But what would he do with it? He'd seen what the tama could do; all who used it ended up dead or tortured, no matter how they tried to justify its use. He couldn't just drop it somewhere; someone, anyone could pick it up and they'd be right back to square one. He couldn't keep it; it would take him over, like it had done to everyone else. A risk he couldn't take.

Tell her, right here, right now. Tell her everything, something inside him said. It wasn't one voice; it was a mass of voices, of all the people who knew them. Sango, Kaede, Shippo, Miroku. Even a bit of himself was talking with the others. How did they expect him to say it? Kagome, I've been in love with you for....I don't know how long. Every time you leave, I die a little bit more. Then he'd be lost. He couldn't ask her to stay; that would be too selfish, even for him. She had a life that Sengoku Jidai wasn't a part of. He knew that. And he had a life here. Not that his life here meant anything anymore; the taijiya and the monk were together, and happy. Shippo was content to live with Kaede. He just stood on the sidelines, trying to fit in like a donkey in a herd of horses. He only half fit, but not quite enough to stay.

Inuyasha took a deep breath, clearly feeling his lungs fill and empty. He couldn't cry anymore; his eyes were dry, devoid of anything to cry. He'd done his share of weeping before hand. It wasn't the sobbing kind, like what you saw in movies or read in stories right before the weeper was rescued and they lived happily ever after. It was the silent crying, the kind you did when you couldn't find it in you to sob, or like when you stared at the moon and it was just so beautiful you couldn't say it. The kind that fell down your face slowly, but never seemed to end either.

"Gomen," he said quietly without letting go.

What else could she do?

Let him keep falling?

Watch as his hand reached towards her? He hadn't failed her, he'd just been disillusioned. Believing that becoming a youkai would dissolve his insecurities, only to realize that it made him heartless and bloodthirsty...she didn't blame him for his choice, exactly, she blamed him for the callous stupidity in which he'd clung to it. Failure was such a strong word, worse then inadequacy – inadequacy was a far kinder term. But she'd failed. She'd failed in her own way, weak and diluted as it was, by not telling the truth. By pushing him away without explanations, by avoiding him without a second thought.

That counted as failure.

It could feel right, but it could still be wrong.

She was telling herself that currently – over and over, halfheartedly as ever, trying to drown out the louder, more belligerent voice that claimed that she was just scared. Terrified of saying anything other then apologies, wondering when the time would come that he would entirely realize that his arms were around her and she would be pushed away. Go, Kagome. Don't let this linger. Don't let this float on, stagnant air, heavy and painfully hard to blow away. It felt right, but still she wanted to move . Almost as if he was the negative pole – pushing her even though she was in his arms. Let go, say goodbye, be wretched, make him regret whatever it was that you had.

Unusable nonsense, but comforting unusable nonsense as he began to speak.

A life without Inuyasha...how strange.

Her world revolved around Sengoku Jidai – her world /was/ Sengoku Jidai. Life in Tokyo was forced for no one knew her enough anymore. They couldn't remember whether she liked the color blue, or if she needed a Band-Aid for that scratch on her left knee. To suddenly snap back into something so abruptly unfamiliar would be sharp and astringent. Oh, she would be jumping in the well only to hurt herself...break a few limbs, what have you. She would never be able to let it go, never able to let /him/ go. That was why saying goodbye was so much harder. It was inviting hurt; it was inviting pain and suffering and loneliness – the pure ache of being without him.

Being in love did that as well, and yet...and yet this would be worse.

Tears. Faint plops as they hit her head.

His fault? What had he done? She had volunteered to stay with him, even when he'd truly tried to push her away. She'd come back. She had more then said that she didn't want to leave him, and yet his tone was so sad. So horribly sad, all resonant and clear – too clear. It gave her too much time to focus on exactly what he was saying, it let ever syllable sink in like shrapnel. And her vocal chords were gone right now. They'd run away – with the way she was feeling, they might've never existed. Her protestations were invisible.

Inaudible, but there.

Kagome allowed herself to be pushed away, reluctantly, and her eyes met his. Stares allowed too much to be conveyed, too much intent and you seemed angry, too little and your shyness was nauseating. And all that Kagome could convey was the wetness that crying induced, covering up the glassiness and the translucence that she felt she was radiating. He could see through her, see through her meaningless façade. But that had been known since she'd jumped through the well and seen him in the water.

Kami, his shining, honey-hued eyes, so very much like amber in the way that she was stuck in them like an unwary fly. She could see her reflection in his orbs, and she felt just about as small as the troublesome insect as the hanyou's tears welled.

Small and horrible as she saw the excess go down his cheeks.

Wonderful. His fault. Jumbled almost immediately – because she saw him closing in and something unexpected happened.

A kiss. Such a simple thing, lips pressed together, nothing more. And yet...and yet she returned it, aware of what was going to happen. So very aware of the sun above her head and the tama in her pocket. Kagome's hand reached to Inuyasha's shoulder, feigning the urge to retreat before she woke up and found herself at home in Tokyo, ready to go through a similar process all over again. Let this just be good, let this just be our singularly happy moment. Let me just pretend for however long. Don't burden me with reality, not quite now.

/"I will always love you"/

And I've loved you all along.

Inuyasha pulled her closer to him, hugging her as tightly as he dared. His lips against hers felt right...There was no other way to describe it. But he had to say goodbye, had to walk away. It wasn't going to be easy, and his heart would shatter; bits and pieces of it felt like they were flaking off already. But this was what was best for her. She had to go back to her home, living where she didn't need to fear for her life because of crazed demons or sorcerers. That was what she deserved; peace.

Peace and safety that he couldn't give her here.

He broke away, half pushing her away, half pulling away himself. A tinge of her still lingered on his lips, a taste he would not soon forget. Letting go of Kagome, he half turned away, still looking at her.

"Gomen nasai, but...You have to go back. It's better for you there, safer. It's what you deserve. I can't protect you anymore."

There, he'd said it. The words burned his throat, and his legs felt numb. He couldn't think much anymore; he felt like the walking dead. For his own purposes, he was. Turning completely, the hanyou made his feet move, walking away slowly and wiping his face in contempt.

Kami, he hated himself.


	6. Dual Failure

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

She'd never been kissed like that. Not the deliberate slowness poisoned with desperation and lurking unease that this one happened to be laced with like arsenic in an expensive cake. How -- how could he know what was best for her? He didn't know what was best for himself half the time.

Pushed away, Kagome's eyes quickly opened, cheeks still damp as she stumbled. The sounds in his forest seemed amplified, the birds chirping..even the steady blowing of the cherry blossoms as they whistled through the trees like pink snow.

Really? She deserved to go home? To a home that wasn't a home without him, to a mother who didn't trust her, to a brother who believed she was clinically insane, and to a grandfather still adamant that she had rheumatism in both of her ankles? To friends who didn't know her, to an admirer she couldn't care less about? How was that better?

Youkai she could handle, /Sengoku Jidai/ she could handle, but to have clung to this life so strongly and to suddenly be told that she had to go back for her own good...she was torn between a suffocating frustration and the same sickly sadness that had trickled out of the crevices of her heart for the past two weeks.

Peace and safety he couldn't give her here. But he was giving her much more then her own time era could ever produce.

The last five words were like bullets -- one in her left lung, one in her kidney, one in her gall bladder. You would never leave me? Look what you're doing now. You're scared -- just as scared as I am -- but at least I don't try to go.

But she could see what saying them did as he walked away.

Without a second thought, Kagome followed after the hanyou, catching up quickly as her hand touched his shoulder.

"Aishiteru, Inuyasha."

The schoolgirl turned around.

Why?

Why did she have to go and say that? Might as well run him through now, while his chest was practically ripped open, pulsing heartbeat sounding like trumpets. After he'd said goodbye, after he'd almost had it fixed in his mind that she would just go home and live life, she just had to go and say that.

/"Aishiteru, Inuyasha."/

His already phenomenal hearing seemed to get even better. Every time a bird chirped or an animal moved, it pounded against his inu ears, which were near as fragile as his heart. It was all he could do to keep from clap his hands over them, doubling over in the agony of the headache that was brewing right between his eyes. Even his own heartbeat pounded in his head, making it worse.

Maybe he didn't always know what was best for himself, but most people didn't know what was best for themselves anyhow. But he knew - just knew - it was best if the miko never saw him again. As much as it hurt him to even think it, he knew. He could yell and hit and kick and scream like a small child and kill as many things as he wanted, but that didn't change reality.

Inuyasha stopped in his tracks, hesitating. He reached one hand up, roughly wiping his forehead as he thought. She'd said it so clearly, with no hesitation. Her voice had vibrated with a scary amount of truth. He'd never thought of what would happen if she loved him back, never thought that she wouldn't just give him a weird look and say he was a fool. He was paying for that now, really.

For lack of anything to say and fear that he would just stare at her like a zombie if he turned around, he stayed silent and still.

/Which of the bold faced lies will we use?/  
/I hope that you're happy, you really deserve it,/  
/This will be the best for us both in the end./

It was too late.

Too late for the foolish plans she'd already started – haha, you fell for it, haha, let me stomp on your heart, haha, here is the tama – I'll go without saying goodbye, just to push the dagger in a bit farther...just to twist the hilt a little bit more. Too late to apologize, too late to rant about her insecurities and her idiotic doubt in their fragile existence – too late to explain that it wasn't that she didn't trust him.

It was just that she didn't trust herself not to hurt him, for she was certainly not good enough for him.

He deserved something more then this skittish teenager who feigned nobility and strength...an illusion, an empty mannequin with a face and a name. More then she could ever give.

It was too late to take everything back, and too late to glue her heart back together.

Kami, couldn't he just turn around?

It wouldn't be so hard – just so that she could see his face. Let it be blank, let it be covered with damp, just as long as it was /there/...not his silver hair blowing in the wind. A reaction – anything. Just not the silence. The swish of her skirt, the pounding of her blood in her temples that reminded her that she was alive, and that her veins were not caverns made of ice.

She'd much rather hear him growl at her...hear the clink of his claws as he pushed her away, to the well, to her world where she 'belonged'.

Let him push her away so it would be easier to forget.

Her hand fell to her side limply, throat sore and cracked, every limb aching to fall off so that her fingers would somehow stop what they were trying to do. She grasped the tama gingerly, disgusted with it, wanting no more then to chuck it into some wild expanse so that someone else could take care of it. The infinitesimal grooves where she had pieced the shards together only reminded her more of her lies.

It rolled into the palm of her hand, obscenely pure and shining.

"Take it."

She said without emphasis, holding out her hand as if it were to be rapped by a teacher as the fresh tears streamed down her face, still unnoticed.

/But your taste still lingers on my lips like I just placed them upon yours/  
/And I starve for you./  
/But this new diet's liquid/  
/And dulling to the senses./  
/And it's crude but it will do./

It was now that he turned, wondering what she meant.

/"Take it."/

She'd said it with tears clear in her voice, the salty smell catching his nose before she'd even said it. /No, don't cry. Please don't cry. It's bad enough I'm crying...don't you go and do it too.../ Unable to look her in the face without feeling as if his already shattered heart was being ground to pieces, he looked down at her hand.

There it was, shining and refracting the light in an inviting fashion. How odd that something so powerful could be that small, barely the size of a large marble. He could take it now, do whatever he wanted. No stealing, no cheating. The miko was offering it willingly, no "But only if" or "The conditions are." It's what he'd been trying to get for so long, wasn't it?

For a while, he just stared at it. He didn't know how to use it. No youkai did. Only for destruction could they use it. The Shikon no Tama would give him power, all the power he could ever dream of. It sounded wonderful from that retrospect, but there was just this one thing...

"I don't want it."


	7. Blind Cowardice

The Shikon no Tama was a double-edged sword. It would give you whatever you wanted, but if the wish was purely on selfish means, it would be the end of you. What a lovely little sentiment – the warning engraved at the bottom of the cloudy jewel. So few heeded it.

That was why the Shikon no Tama so regularly unleashed disaster in its wake. But now Kagome had given up. Her head was hanging and she'd given up on adding in the cliché 'but the conditions are''s and 'but only if''s...let him do what he wanted. To become a youkai, to stay a hanyou, to do whatever he wanted.

It truly wasn't her place anymore, not at the end of their – relationship – or whatever it was called.

I died to keep you from it, and now I willingly give it to you.

How ironic, how amusing, how terribly sad.

Her unoccupied hand haphazardly brushed at her eyes to that her vision would be a little less blurred by the wet droplets collecting on her eyelashes like morning dew.

"What?"

The girl asked, knowing she'd heard him correctly but asking anyway. The sun warmed the tama, the soft surface too gentle. If it could look a little less benign, if she could have a little more dignity, if he could only look at her – never mind the tears that were freely flowing. She couldn't bring herself to make the hot rivulets stop.

Finally she broke eye contact, resolve shaking as her head lowered to stare at the earth between her feet.

It's funny, once you think about it. How you can say something clear as day, right to someone's face, and they'll still ask you to repeat it like they hadn't understood a word you'd said.

/"I don't want it."/

Those four words, on their own, are so useless. They can good or bad, confusing or simple. Without a situation, without a circumstance, they are nothing. Until you give them a purpose, in this case, a refusal, they are hollow sounds that bounce around an endless void.

They had come so easily, easier than he'd expected. He'd said them without really realizing he'd said them. They'd just come.

There she went again, crying. Inuyasha looked up from the sparkling jewel, intending to make eye contact. But now /she/ was the one looking down. He felt tears come freely from his eyes, trailing down his face to fall to the ground. Gripping the edge of his sleeve, he reached out to Kagome to wipe the tears off her face with the back of his cloth-covered fist.

"I don't want it, Kagome. It would be wasted." His voice was reassuring, but there was no quiver of second thoughts or doubt as he said it.

He put his arms around her tightly, wondering if he could ever truly let go.

Oh no. Not again. Stuck between a rock and a hard place...well, okay, so the place wasn't /hard/ exactly. More like soft, comforting, warm...but he was still stuck. What to do now? The logical thing was to make a pure wish on the jewel, to make it disappear, but what to wish for? It would take a long time to decide how to word it, and in that time, they were in ample danger. There were still youkai out there in Naraku's league that were after the thing.

Ah yes. The youkai. The masses of youkai that would like nothing more than a dead Inuyasha and Kagome and a glowing tama in their hands. They could prove to be very annoying. Fortunately, they always seemed to show up when Kagome was at home, so they'd turned back soon enough. Inuyasha had watched, hungry-eyed, as they approached the village for a sniff. Like dogs to a steak that had once been in a place, and after it was gone, the scent lingered. They'd flit at the edges of his range, taunting him with entertainment that never seemed to come through. Never staying, but never leaving either. They were just...there. It was really only a matter of time before one attacked to found some  
half-brained lackey to do it for them.

Kami, time seemed to be catching up to them. The scent that had been bothering him constantly for quite some time now reached his nose. It was too close for comfort. Letting go of Kagome, the hanyou pushed the miko to the side, close enough to come to her aid if needed, but far enough to the point that if whatever was out there was aiming for him, she could get out of the way.

"Show yourself, demon! Fight face to face!" he demanded, one hand on the sword.

A cold, male laugh rang through the air, seemingly out of nowhere. "Why bother doing something so useless? I can kill you from here."

"What the..." A strangled cry erupted from his throat as vines from the trees and roots from the ground encircled him, driving him back towards the water. The hanyou swore, losing his balance as he moved back. One living vine caught him in the neck, a second in the chest, and he was thrown back into the lake, air pushed out of his lungs for the moment. Inuyasha hit the water with a splash, the vines and roots hovering over where he had fallen.

Soft - comforting - warm ... a handle that was almost /too/ real after you'd been falling for ages from the dark recesses of some bad dream that had somehow conjured itself into reality ... a handle that mysteriously sprouted out of some wall so that the downward tangent ceased.

How long /would/ it take? The tama had been known to twist desires, to find the polar opposite of what you wanted but still have the phrasing work it that tainted sense. 'I want my heart's desire..' - some desires are black, even if you are pure hearted all the same. Kagome was too scared to even think about wishing for something like that - what if her heart wanted something it had never cared to share with the rest of her?

The sudden rigidity in the hanyou's body caused Kagome's head to turn behind her, only to see the vague impression of something that /might've/ been there. A good three yards from Inuyasha, she looked at the empty space, the wind stopping and the sakura blossoms stopping their graceful falls per request of whatever youkai wanted to kill them this time.

/This/ time ... it sounded so weary ...

It was too fast for her to tell him to be careful - too fast for her to do anything except hope that whatever it was /did/ show up and fight face-to-face. And then Inuyasha flew back, slamming into the water and sending the pink flowers askew, reminiscent of some film noir samurai film. But this wasn't a movie, and the fear in her heart was very real as she ran towards the water, ignoring the fact that her back was to the invisible enemy.

"Inuyasha?! /Inuyasha?!"

Kagome called loudly, that horrible part of her mind /turning/, the wheels /clicking/ as they budged together as she didn't see the boy thrash. It had been a clean fall - the painful slap and then silence.

Peek your head up, please, do /something/.

His consciousness ended for less than a second, amber eyes snapping open as the breathing reflex kicked in. Water flooded his throat, spilling into his lungs. Clawed hand came up, slowed by the crystalline-blue liquid all around him, to grip his throat lightly. His vision swirled with the water, blurry brown twists that were the offending roots and pink, blotchy spot that were cherry blossoms drifting across the surface like water lights. And in the middle of it he could see Kagome's messy figure, could just barely see her mouth move as she called out to him. He wanted to yell up to her, to gather the strength to swim up. Kami, he tried, but his body didn't respond. He could only grit his teeth and shut his eyes tightly as the bright colors flickered behind his eyelids...

He was dying, and he knew it. Hah, he felt like burning those words he'd said so long ago out of existance. /'Maybe one day I'll die at the hands of someone stronger than me...'/ He hadn't even seen the bastard's face, for he knew the youkai had a face, somewhere deep inside him he just knew. And somewhere, that unknown face was twisted in some kind of sick, demented smile.

Even as the breath was pushed slowly out of his lungs, demonic healing lacing his blood and putting off death just for a while, he couldn't think of himself. He couldn't think, "I'm dying, what's going to happen to me?" Instead, thoughts like, "Will Kagome be okay?" and "I hope that monk lives long enough to have children, since he was so persistant about it" ran through his head. He was scared to death for the miko, regretting having held back the truth from her for so long. Regretting not having hugged her, kissed her, sooner. Regretted not being around for the wonderful wish Kagome would make.

Oncoming death was surprisingly warm. As water filled his lungs, a warm blanket wrapped itself around him. The rainbow colors that had been flashing behind his lids turned to white, morphing and twisting into a human figure. Volumous robes created themselves in the light, draped carefully over a body roughly the size of Kagome's.

"It's not your time yet..." The whisper washed over the hanyou as he slipped away into unconsciousness. "It's not your time to come to us."


	8. Don't Tell Me

The Shikon no Tama was a double-edged sword. It would give you whatever you wanted, but if the wish was purely on selfish means, it would be the end of you. What a lovely little sentiment – the warning engraved at the bottom of the cloudy jewel. So few heeded it.  
  
That was why the Shikon no Tama so regularly unleashed disaster in its wake. But now Kagome had given up. Her head was hanging and she'd given up on adding in the cliché 'but the conditions are''s and 'but only if''s...let him do what he wanted. To become a youkai, to stay a hanyou, to do whatever he wanted.  
  
It truly wasn't her place anymore, not at the end of their – relationship – or whatever it was called.  
  
I died to keep you from it, and now I willingly give it to you.  
  
How ironic, how amusing, how terribly sad.  
  
Her unoccupied hand haphazardly brushed at her eyes to that her vision would be a little less blurred by the wet droplets collecting on her eyelashes like morning dew.  
  
"What?"  
  
The girl asked, knowing she'd heard him correctly but asking anyway. The sun warmed the tama, the soft surface too gentle. If it could look a little less benign, if she could have a little more dignity, if he could only look at her – never mind the tears that were freely flowing. She couldn't bring herself to make the hot rivulets stop.  
  
Finally she broke eye contact, resolve shaking as her head lowered to stare at the earth between her feet.  
  
It's funny, once you think about it. How you can say something clear as day, right to someone's face, and they'll still ask you to repeat it like they hadn't understood a word you'd said.  
  
/"I don't want it."/  
  
Those four words, on their own, are so useless. They can good or bad, confusing or simple. Without a situation, without a circumstance, they are nothing. Until you give them a purpose, in this case, a refusal, they are hollow sounds that bounce around an endless void.  
  
They had come so easily, easier than he'd expected. He'd said them without really realizing he'd said them. They'd just come.  
  
There she went again, crying. Inuyasha looked up from the sparkling jewel, intending to make eye contact. But now /she/ was the one looking down. He felt tears come freely from his eyes, trailing down his face to fall to the ground. Gripping the edge of his sleeve, he reached out to Kagome to wipe the tears off her face with the back of his cloth-covered fist.  
  
"I don't want it, Kagome. It would be wasted." His voice was reassuring, but there was no quiver of second thoughts or doubt as he said it.

He put his arms around her tightly, wondering if he could ever truly let go.


	9. Downward Spiral

Sorry for the odd continuation, loves. Yes, this chapter starts with our beloved half-demon's POV.)

Oh no. Not again. Stuck between a rock and a hard place...well, okay, so the place wasn't /hard/ exactly. More like soft, comforting, warm...but he was still stuck. What to do now? The logical thing was to make a pure wish on the jewel, to make it disappear, but what to wish for? It would take a long time to decide how to word it, and in that time, they were in ample danger. There were still youkai out there in Naraku's league that were after the thing.

Ah yes. The youkai. The masses of youkai that would like nothing more than a dead Inuyasha and Kagome and a glowing tama in their hands. They could prove to be very annoying. Fortunately, they always seemed to show up when Kagome was at home, so they'd turned back soon enough. Inuyasha had watched, hungry-eyed, as they approached the village for a sniff. Like dogs to a steak that had once been in a place, and after it was gone, the scent lingered. They'd flit at the edges of his range, taunting him with entertainment that never seemed to come through. Never staying, but never leaving either. They were just...there. It was really only a matter of time before one attacked to found some   
half-brained lackey to do it for them.  
  
Kami, time seemed to be catching up to them. The scent that had been bothering him constantly for quite some time now reached his nose. It was too close for comfort. Letting go of Kagome, the hanyou pushed the miko to the side, close enough to come to her aid if needed, but far enough to the point that if whatever was out there was aiming for him, she could get out of the way.  
  
"Show yourself, demon! Fight face to face!" he demanded, one hand on the sword.  
  
A cold, male laugh rang through the air, seemingly out of nowhere. "Why bother doing something so useless? I can kill you from here."  
  
"What the..." A strangled cry erupted from his throat as vines from the trees and roots from the ground encircled him, driving him back towards the water. The hanyou swore, losing his balance as he moved back. One living vine caught him in the neck, a second in the chest, and he was thrown back into the lake, air pushed out of his lungs for the moment. Inuyasha hit the water with a splash, the vines and roots hovering over where he had fallen.  
  
Soft - comforting - warm ... a handle that was almost /too/ real after you'd been falling for ages from the dark recesses of some bad dream that had somehow conjured itself into reality ... a handle that mysteriously sprouted out of some wall so that the downward tangent ceased.  
  
How long /would/ it take? The tama had been known to twist desires, to find the polar opposite of what you wanted but still have the phrasing work it that tainted sense. 'I want my heart's desire..' - some desires are black, even if you are pure hearted all the same. Kagome was too scared to even think about wishing for something like that - what if her heart wanted something it had never cared to share with the rest of her?  
  
The sudden rigidity in the hanyou's body caused Kagome's head to turn behind her, only to see the vague impression of something that /might've/ been there. A good three yards from Inuyasha, she looked at the empty space, the wind stopping and the sakura blossoms stopping their graceful falls per request of whatever youkai wanted to kill them this time.  
  
/This/ time ... it sounded so weary ...  
  
It was too fast for her to tell him to be careful - too fast for her to do anything except hope that whatever it was /did/ show up and fight face-to-face. And then Inuyasha flew back, slamming into the water and sending the pink flowers askew, reminiscent of some film noir samurai film. But this wasn't a movie, and the fear in her heart was very real as she ran towards the water, ignoring the fact that her back was to the invisible enemy.  
  
"Inuyasha?! /Inuyasha?!"  
  
Kagome called loudly, that horrible part of her mind /turning/, the wheels /clicking/ as they budged together as she didn't see the boy thrash. It had been a clean fall - the painful slap and then silence.  
  
Peek your head up, please, do /something/.  
  
His consciousness ended for less than a second, amber eyes snapping open as the breathing reflex kicked in. Water flooded his throat, spilling into his lungs. Clawed hand came up, slowed by the crystalline-blue liquid all around him, to grip his throat lightly. His vision swirled with the water, blurry brown twists that were the offending roots and pink, blotchy spot that were cherry blossoms drifting across the surface like water lights. And in the middle of it he could see Kagome's messy figure, could just barely see her mouth move as she called out to him. He wanted to yell up to her, to gather the strength to swim up. Kami, he tried, but his body didn't respond. He could only grit his teeth and shut his eyes tightly as the bright colors flickered behind his eyelids...  
  
He was dying, and he knew it. Hah, he felt like burning those words he'd said so long ago out of existance. /'Maybe one day I'll die at the hands of someone stronger than me...'/ He hadn't even seen the bastard's face, for he knew the youkai had a face, somewhere deep inside him he just knew. And somewhere, that unknown face was twisted in some kind of sick, demented smile.  
  
Even as the breath was pushed slowly out of his lungs, demonic healing lacing his blood and putting off death just for a while, he couldn't think of himself. He couldn't think, "I'm dying, what's going to happen to me?" Instead, thoughts like, "Will Kagome be okay?" and "I hope that monk lives long enough to have children, since he was so persistant about it" ran through his head. He was scared to death for the miko, regretting having held back the truth from her for so long. Regretting not having hugged her, kissed her, sooner. Regretted not being around for the wonderful wish Kagome would make.  
  
Oncoming death was surprisingly warm. As water filled his lungs, a warm blanket wrapped itself around him. The rainbow colors that had been flashing behind his lids turned to white, morphing and twisting into a human figure. Volumous robes created themselves in the light, draped carefully over a body roughly the size of Kagome's.  
  
"It's not your time yet..." The whisper washed over the hanyou as he slipped away into unconsciousness. "It's not your time to come to us." 


	10. Troublesome, Albeit Resilient

"Dai...daijobu desu.." he replied shakily, nodding. The oxygen pouring into his lungs was painful and blissful. For once, the hanyou was glad to be in pain. It meant he was /alive/. Never thought he'd be so glad to be breathing, even if he /was/ still coughing up the last of the water he'd taken in. He wiped his eyes a few times, blinking as he pushed himself up on one knee. "Arigatou...I thought I was done for..."  
  
"What makes you think you're not?" the voice hissed, the writhing leaves finally deciding where they wanted to go. The vines rocketed in their direction, no longer aiming for Inuyasha. They soared true at Kagome, but the hanyou was determined not to lose Kagome. Especially not right after she'd saved his life. Despite physical protests, he reached out and gripped the miko's arm unceremoniously, pulling her into his arms and catapulting himself back. His chest ached like hell as he held the girl close to it, breathing heavy as he turned his head to spit out access water that had yet to leave him.  
  
The vines swung around, taking less than a second to aim and shooting for them once again. Inuyasha jumped again, darting into a thick tree. Once again being followed, he moved soon, landing once again on the ground as the vines arced, clipping a few branches off the blossom-covered tree.  
  
/Damn...where the hell is he? These vines just won't stop.../

Her eyes widened at the hissed response, this time only vaguely familiar. She'd heard him before -- not really, though...it was almost like a faint dream. It was wispy and detached but just as cold ... young, in a way -- precocious in a manner too horrible to imagine. But Kagome was not going to jump to conclusions; the last time she'd seen that -- /thing/ -- it had been a baby. A baby that nearly stole her heart because of her all consuming -- not hatred, really -- utmost /dislike/ towards the dead miko.  
  
"Don't, Inuyasha!"  
  
She said, already in his arms and already thoroughly annoyed with the injured hanyou, despite the circumstance. In his arms she subjected herself to a silent torrent of curses...why couldn't she have her bow and arrows when she needed them? Inuyasha couldn't do this on his own...Kami, it would be so nice to be an actual priestess right now, with all the powers it entitled. But no -- without her arrows she was just a stupid, feeble ningen; the exact reason the hanyou had tried to get her to leave some half an hour ago.  
  
So this was going to be their life.  
  
There. A young boy, about six yards away from what she could barely see through the sakura of the thick tree, was staring at her with muted interest as the vines paused. He had shaggy silver hair and nondescript blue-gray eyes. The white hakama he wore had short sleeves, the smile on his face faint -- unlike the rather amused glint in those seemingly blind orbs. His gaze shut off of her after no more then a millisecond as the vines began to follow them once more.  
  
Kami.../this/ was not good.  
  
That /thing/ had grown up.  
  
"Inuyasha -- he was right there!"

The hanyou skidded on the ground as it met his feet once again, holding as tightly as he dared. Her protests were somewhat lost; no way in hell he was just going to let...whatever was attacking them have her. Never. At a disadvantage, the water in his clothes slowing him just a little, he didn't have the mentality to do much more than worry about staying alive. Just a hair too slow, and those things would catch them.  
  
"Well excuse me for missing something when nature is trying to impale me!" He wasn't really, truly angry, just worked up in the effort of staying alive. His brain had less than a second to think; put down Kagome and whip out the sword, or keep running. Putting her down was good for the fighting, but he didn't know how much power this /thing/ had or where he would launch his next weapon. They could get separated. But if he kept holding on, they might get sprung, and without the Tetsusaiga to fight with, they'd be consumed by whatever was thrown at them.  
  
Gritting his teeth, Inuyasha put Kagome down, quickly shoving her behind him and unsheathing the now-transformed Tetsusaiga in the same movement. The great blade whipped fast for its bulk, sending a shockwave and stunning the thick vines. They froze where they were, shuddered for a moment. It looked almost as if they would keep moving for just a second before cracks appeared on the surfaces, vines falling in a decimated heap.  
  
That threat gone, the hanyou swept the sword toward where Kagome had said she saw the thing. "Get out here, you bastard! Before I come to you!"

The disadvantage was also that he was holding her -- and that he'd nearly drowned about ten minutes ago. This was certainly an evenly matched fight, especially when ... it - he - /whatever/ - could now control vines at a frightening speed. Kagome could only halfway hope (even though she did know he would wouldn't put her down) that she wasn't about to slow him down enough for one of those vines to actually stab through flesh like they did with the dozens of tattered blossoms that flew around .. a massacred bridal bouquet.  
  
She was about to reply in the same pseudo-angry manner when she was pushed back, skidding in the petals as Inuyasha shredded the vines, leaving the young boy with such a passive smile standing where there'd once been countless plants -- vines that were actually twitching from their place on the earth.  
  
"See .. I made it easy for you, hanyou."  
  
The cloudy stare shifted to Kagome, a smirk spreading across thin lips. He was too young to look so ... creepy. It was as if a young cousin had been possessed -- but by no terms could this guy be called /young/. He made her feel dirty, as if a thick amount of sleaze had been wiped through her system just by returning the cold look.  
  
"How sad. You don't remember me, Kagome?" Her name was spat. "I suppose I was cut in half too long after our last meeting...a pity. You would've been such a grand addition to the family -- maybe then you wouldn't have that damned tama hidden in your skirt."  
  
A small hand raised, sending out a cloud of thick jaki, not unlike Naraku's miasma if not stronger, spanning out in seemingly worthless wisps of smoke which convoluted into something much larger.


	11. Interlude Numero Uno

Wow. Look how far we've gone. A drastic change of angst and foreboding to some action. Krim is the queen of this, rest assured. I could've stayed with tears and kisses for ages.

But the fluff is coming. And...creepy short guys. If you've seen the later episodes of Inuyasha – 140 -- you should recognize him.

I love him.

You'll love him.

Hooray for the creepy short guys!

Oh. If you ever want to contact me – tell me that you want me to start writing or something like that – well ... IM me at x glitter ninja or email me at . I love any comments...even if you haven't bothered to post here.

The story is FAR continued. I just need to UPLOAD things. Like I am now. Ja ne!


	12. Wishful Thinking

What the hell...?  
  
No...there was no way that little.../thing/ could have posed such a goddamn threat. It looked too child-like to be so damned...creepy. Scary. Those weren't really the words, but they came close enough to count. A heavy feeling accompanied him, the kind that made your stomach turn. And for a moment, he felt like he'd done something horribly wrong and was hiding it from someone very important...  
  
The Tetsusaiga was brandished closer to the hanyou's body now, more in attack position than threat. Those twitching vines were starting to worry him, if just a little bit, since dead things usually twitched for a bit and decided they needed to be dead now.... Nope, still moving. Like the bee you hit with your swatter than just didn't lay still...  
  
"What's he talking about, Kagome?" Inuyasha asked quietly, not able to keep the - worry? fear? - from his voice. And then...he recognized those fumes...  
  
Kuso.  
  
Covering his nose and mouth with a sleeve, careful not to breath the toxic gas, he backed up and covered Kagome's as well, sticking the sword in the ground in front of him. The aura of the sword would shield them a little, acting twice fold as a shield while the hanyou held the miko close enough to block the gas. The fumes were already spreading, as if in an attempt to flush out any living thing in the area. There was no escaping, unless...  
  
...But how were they supposed to defeat that thing?  
  
"Any ideas?" he probed, even quieter this time. This.../thing/ sent enough shivers down his spine that he was actually quiet.

"I don't know what he's talking about..."  
  
She forced, the whisper making her feel even worse. It was almost nauseating, this way he was looking at her like he understood every single insecurity, every single flaw magnified and gaudy.  
  
And the fact that Inuyasha sounded so quiet -- so disturbingly muted and worried -- it made the sickening feeling that she /should/ explain what had happened so long ago all the stronger. But that would be admitting far too much...allowing him to know how foolish she was to an even greater extent.  
  
The schoolgirl was not about to let that happen as she stifled the urge to worm out of Inuyasha's embrace, something she felt decidedly undeserving of at a time like this. At a time when everything was supposed to be perfect and ... /no/. She was getting ahead of herself. This was how it was going to be, right? She'd already made that decision -- to brave all the big baddies that followed their path.  
  
"I don't know -- Tetsusaiga should be able to disturb the jaki enough...but still...I don't know..."  
  
That, at least, was the truth. The last time she'd seen../it/...it was a baby. An intensely frightening baby that Inuyasha had saved her from in the nick of time, but still. There was no way it could've grown so fast, and there was no reason for the weird look in its eyes.  
  
"What?" He rolled his eyes. "You're such a pathetic liar, Kagome. Don't tell me you forgot. I spent far too much effort for you to just /forget/..." His dripping tone settled into an amused drawl as one slender eyebrow arched nonchalantly, unimpressed and undisturbed.

Hm...there was no way....He disliked the idea that Kagome might have lied to him, but considering this little /thing/ here...  
  
Well, he probably would have lied about an encounter with the little freak, too. The midget just seemed to unnaturally comfortable in the face of an enemy - namely him - so unnaturally uncaring, as if this was an afterthought on his to do list...  
  
/Eat lunch, take a walk, take a nap. Oh, yeah, and I should kill Kagome and Inuyasha and take the jewel to kill some time./  
  
That just wasn't right. Naraku was one thing; he would at least be interested. This little thing just looked downright bored. As if he was a child - a fairly normal child - who was trying to pester a bit of information from a friend that they'd discussed many times before. If the hanyou knew one thing about this unnatural child, it was that he had to die. Now.  
  
A little voice still nagged at him, telling him Kagome had hidden things. He was undoubtedly, horribly curious, though curiousity and fear and anger wasn't always the best mix. He pushed that back, deciding a talk was best to take place after the fumes were gone and the acursed child was dead.  
  
"Well, we can't just stand here and hide," Inuyasha stated in his usual tone, as much to the child as to Kagome. "To think I had nearly forgotten this." Releasing the miko, the hanyou ripped his sword from the ground, holding it out to his side. "I don't know what you did to Kagome, but it doesn't matter anymore. You'll never hurt her again. Bakuryuuha!"  
  
His voice seemed to echo and vibrate as he said the words, bracing himself. The blade glowed bright white, causing the hanyou to squint but not look away. With a great sweep, the light erupted all over, the famed Tetsusaiga full-filling its legend. The power that could destroy 100 youkai was directed solely at the demonic child, no doubt visible for a mile or two outside the forest. One could only hope the twisted being knew how to die properly...


	13. Room for Error

That was what had been so frightening about him when he was a baby – the fact that he could /speak/ was naturally a disturbing tidbit of information – but the unassuming intelligence and disdain that was more habit then true loathing made him simply, undiluted, and entirely creepy.  
  
Kagome had hidden enough things – they'd gotten through the main ones – although nearly being a puppet of his old arch-nemesis /did/ count as another large...not really a /lie/. Things like that didn't regularly show up in everyday conversation. Thank Kami.  
  
She let go of a small noise, the surprise that always accompanied the miko whenever she witnessed Inuyasha's largest attack. It was good that it /was/ so widely spread – the toxins had been swept away just as neatly as Nakago. The urchin was nowhere to be seen..that was easy enough to tell. Whether he was dead or not was an entirely separate issue.  
  
'You'll never hurt her again'.  
  
It – he didn't even know what he was talking about. And now that the child was gone, Kagome would have to explain. She coughed, the poison abrasive on her throat as her holy powers tried to soothe the area.  
  
"..." The girl was silent. She sure as hell wasn't going to push this ... she didn't want to have to admit that she was so pathetic. Kagome began to chew her lip softly, forcing her eyes away from the hanyou who had saved her life more then once.

The hanyou panted lightly - it wasn't easy to pull that off - sliding the Tetsusaiga back into its sheath. The blade glowed with a clean twang, transforming in a halo of golden light. The place where the "child" had once stood was a scorch on the ground. Grass would never grow there again, that was for sure. A trace of the empty, guilty feeling still lingered. He tried to shrug it away, but it stuck there. Like spider webs that could be brushed away, but leave wisps of silky strands hanging in their wake.  
  
It was over. The worst was over. Sort of. Secrets had come out, that thing that had been bothering him for weeks was finally gone, both were alive. What to do now, though...  
  
Maybe the worst wasn't over. But only time would tell, truly.  
  
Inuyasha looked around to Kagome, turning to face the miko. Her gaze no longer rested on him, instead turned away as if she was ashamed. And maybe...  
  
"Kagome, what was that thing? Why did he know you?" He paused. "What's wrong?"

What to do now.  
  
They'd been sent back to square one, surely. The awkward silence had only been made ever so much more suffocating by the fact their secrets were out. She didn't feel as comforted as she might've liked ... perhaps that was why her gaze remained lowered no matter how much of her begged to let go of her blanket-like cowardice.  
  
"He isn't worth remembering -- don't worry about it."  
  
She was quick as she spoke, chocolate orbs only flicking upward for a millisecond to squirm quickly away. He shouldn't be worried about it -- he'd /saved/ her from Nakago once before. Just when she was about to accept her fate.  
  
Her arms crossed over her soaked chest, a rattled breath escaping through a closed mouth. Only now did she remember her hair was dripping ... she probably looked all the more pitiful, caught red-handed, /ashamed/ and so very /uncomfortable/.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
Kagome finally added the futile statement in after a good three minutes.  
  
When did this sinking feeling just settle into daily life -- when did this worry suddenly become a constant? It didn't seem unfamiliar to be so on guard; a coiled spring; a readied trap. Maybe it would be like a tumor -- merely another appendage. Hello, this is I, and these are my arms and legs, which are useful, and this is my fear, which is less than useful, but I have learned to drag it around, so pay it no mind.  
  
The sakura blossoms were tattered -- ripped paper airplanes -- as they drifted by, sticking to her damp hair like odd decorations.

The problem was that he /did/ worry, whether Nakago was worth remembering or not. He worried about what had happened that he didn't know about. He was the kind who wanted to know anything and everything, no matter how painful. One little bit of knowledge can make a whole world of difference, in his mind.  
  
The three minute silence gave him time to mentally check himself. He was still soaking, though a little bit dry from moving around. His long hair felt like a weight, now doubt with sakura petals and twigs and leaves mingled with the silvery-white locks. He felt /heavy/, now that the need to move was no longer as big an issue that it had been.  
  
The hanyou might have accepted that - might, mind you - had she not said she was fine. The lie was evident in the feigned insistence. The shield that hid the pain and shame crumbling, or dissolving, or whatever the mental shields did. He'd set up enough of them for himself; he should know. But after all this...why did she still think she needed to lie?  
  
Inuyasha took the few heavy steps until he was close enough, reaching out to tilt Kagome's chin up with a loose fist. Looking down at her with clear worry, his already tired face displaying a slight disappointment. Not so much the fact that she had lied, but /why/, really. Why /now/?  
  
"Don't lie...please....You aren't good at it today."  
  
Leave room for error, ne?


	14. Learn To Lie

You keep lying, even when you are at your greatest ease, because to appear cowardly is worse then most. Now that she /could/ shield herself, even to however weak the extent -- there was always the chance he wasn't really listening. That he hadn't really noticed...and she could just /pretend/.  
  
"I'm never good at it."  
  
There wasn't cheer when she finally decided to reply, energy draining.  
  
"...I knew him when he was a baby. He was a counterpart of Naraku, and Kagura had him." She looked away, though she didn't shrug out of his grasp. "-- I think you were off trying to find Kikyou when she had set him in my arms, and he had begun to speak to her. It all got hazy after that, but I knew he was looking for something and he was getting annoyed as he dug deeper and deeper. It was like a drill -- some sort of ice pick that he was grating further and further with one of his tiny, perfect hands."  
  
Kagome blinked, exhaling when she realized she'd been holding her breath.  
  
"He found you, and kept digging. And then there was this dark spot, and he got happy again. He needed the darkness in me so that I could become corrupted, and become another reincarnation ... it took him so long that he supposed that it was the only thing there." The girl's voice brightened somewhat as she continued, though it ultimately dropped into the tired, over-used voice for excuses as to why she'd left her homework on the kitchen counter.  
  
"You broke through the hut, and you saved me. The baby had found Kikyou somewhere in there, and knew that I hated her...no matter how I claimed that I didn't...and that was enough. Gomen nasai -- I shouldn't have -- if I hadn't, then you wouldn't have had to - "

The hanyou listened as long as he could stand it. He even exceeded his old record by a couple of seconds. Surprisingly, he really /listened./ He took in the information, tried to make as much sense out of it as he could. All he really got out of it was this one concept.  
  
That little thing had used Kagome's hate - yes, he felt comfortable using the term 'hate' - for Kikyou and turned it against her. Once he'd gotten that, he really didn't need to listen anymore...  
  
"You talk too much sometimes," he told her through her own words, leaning in to gently kiss her lips. But this time, there was no deliberate slowness of impending doom. That was nice. He wasn't crying. That was nice. They were both soaked. That was...something else that didn't quite come to mind right now. The hand still under her chin, Inuyasha slipped an arm around Kagome's waist, pulling her close. As if he needed to confirm something.  
  
It was so hard to believe all that had just happened. Well, maybe not so hard. They'd gone through some weird things before, but never anything as momentous as this. They'd confessed love, and the world hadn't ended. They'd faced the child-like incarnation of Naraku, the last, since he was dead, and all that was left was a scorch mark and some dead leaves. And he could hold the miko without coming up with some silly excuse.  
  
Now /that/ was nice.

"Yo-"  
  
Kagome was about to protest when his lips pressed to hers, any sort of argument smothered before an actual sentence could be fully realized. Inuyasha's mouth was damp and warm as a hand reached to his shoulder, the other tentatively placed on the hanyou's hip as her feet arched, going up on tiptoe almost subconsciously.  
  
It was nice not to expect the sky to come tumbling at any moment, not to expect something exceedingly horrid to automatically appear just when guards were let down and her babbling had ceased. It was so /nice/ to know that he was real, warm and living, and not a figment. She had started to have her doubts when she'd realized that he had been listening.  
  
That didn't occur very often in her conversations with the him.  
  
"Mm."  
  
She murmured softly, the numbing tips of her toes within the ruined tennis shoes a thing of the past. They were just shoes, after all ... and when Inuyasha tasted very sweet, and smelled like rain for an exceedingly obvious reason ... it made her all the less inclined to focus on frivolous matters.  
  
Like whether she was going to have to have her entire leg amputated.  
  
Yes, there were much more important matters at hand.


	15. Freedom Has Limits

Funny, he'd never been like this before.  
  
Ironic, really. Usually this kind of thing - well, you know, kissing and such - turned him into someone. Someone a bit more shy and introverted, reluctant and slow to the uptake. Maybe being around Kagome allowed him to be himself, or maybe Kikyou had given off the air that had made him hesitate so much more. Either way, he was definitely acting like himself now...  
  
Pulling back from the kiss, he held her as close as he dared, trying not to suffocate her or anything.  
  
"Kagome, we're free."  
  
Free from everything. No more collecting jewel shards, no more Naraku. No more demon-hunting, if they didn't want to. No more hiding from each other. Free from feelings for the dead miko, free from her entirely. No more impending doom of hell. No more worrying about Miroku and his kazanna. No more worrying about Kohaku. Any problems they had were irrelevant to the moment, and so they were free from that too.  
  
"Aishiteru...." The hanyou half laughed, half snorted. "I'm wet...."

It was a delirious, dizzying feeling to be so ... fearless ... but lacking the actual fear. To be entirely at ease, considering there was nothing to worry about. It was actual bliss to know that the fact that her cheeks were wet was not because of tears ... and that yes, it was amusing that they'd both half-drowned in a pond, though towards a greater extent for the hanyou.  
  
It was funny now because they were together, and it was still truly incomprehensible that they were. The hand on his shoulder reached up to tug on a dripping bang lightly as one of the truest smiles she'd mustered in an extremely long time made its unfamiliar way across her face.  
  
"Aishiteru, zubunure baka."  
  
Her teasing was almost unfamiliar as well -- it was snapping into some ancient routine she'd never experienced before. But she liked it ... she liked the idea of this giddiness that was made from the essence of acceptance and love.  
  
"-- we should head back to my era. There are dryers there ... otherwise we'll probably freeze to death."  
  
Kagome didn't bother to explain the job of a 'dryer'. The word was pretty self-explanatory, right?

"You sure your grandfather won't try to curse me out of the house or anything? Or your mother, for that matter? Can't imagine she'd be very fond of me, concidering..." He let it hang, not wanting to ruin a happy moment with things that would upset Kagome's mother.  
  
The teasing was unusual for her, but just the smile the miko had on her face was more than words could say. For the first time in a long time, the hanyou's face broke out into a true smile. He shook his head, sending light droplets on both of them. Though since they were already soaking, it made no difference. His ears twitched, moving a fraction of a second behind the rest of his head.  
  
"I'll still go to your era with you, but I just want to know what to expect..." Okay, dryer, getting dry. The two concepts seemed to match well enough. "And I'm tired of being wet."

"I think it'll be alright. Okaa-san doesn't hate you ... she just doesn't know you, I guess. Maybe her fondness...will return?"  
  
Kagome felt overly hopeful as to that fact. She was already awaiting a long conversation with her mother when she brought Inuyasha into the house.  
  
She doesn't /know/ you, OR she thinks that you randomly attack me, or that every mishap in my life revolves around you, or that you're the reason I stopped going to school when I was generally in my own era...  
  
Her smile faded slightly, though not entirely. "It'll be okay..my family won't attack you."  
  
Well. Kagome hoped, prayed, and halfway /believed/ that they wouldn't attack him with either flimsy ofudas, biting words, or just extremely pathetic chibi eyes. Souta had missed the hanyou a lot more then he would ever let on.  
  
The miko pulled out of his embrace, entwining his hand with her own. "Come on.."


	16. It's Empty

"They'll just have to live with me, right?" Inuyasha retorted with a good-natured eyeroll.  
  
Kagome's family was quite interesting to him. He had no real views of what a family should be, no idea what it would be like to have a sibling that loved you and a grandfather who was a little more than halfway crazy and a mother that was constantly trying to understand you while you were going through your teenage years and usually just ended up confusing yourself. No, he'd had Sesshoumaru, who wanted to kill him, Myoga the Flea, who was little help in anything, and his mother had died before she'd had the chance to see him fully grow. Sad, really, but he'd stopped thinking about it after all this time.  
  
The hanyou allowed himself to be led to the well, slipping an arm around the miko's waist before resting a foot on the lip of the well. "Ready?"  
  
Here goes nothing...cursed scrolls and steak. Lovely.

She couldn't imagine not having a family to torture her, to care too much or too little at the wrong times. If her only true companionship was a flea, a brother who wished him dead and a mother who'd been dead for far too long – it wasn't really feasible to begin with.  
  
They would always /be/ there. A boulder in front of a very interesting door...it wasn't so interesting that you were about to push the boulder over, but it would be nice to see what was lurking within.  
  
Kagome didn't bother to reply as they jumped through the well, a flash of blue light greeting them, along with a very aggravated cat that paced around the rim of the well overhead. Someone had opened the door and hadn't closed it behind them – probably she, all things considered.  
  
She could just claim there'd been a random bout of rain in Sengoku Jidai – not that some psychotic grade school demon that had nearly possessed her once before had pushed the half-demon she was in love with into a pond, of course sending her to go drag him out. That would be asking a little much of her slightly forgiving parental unit.

The moment the blue light faded, the hanyou's nose was flooded with the scent of cat, old inscense, and the last traces of a sugary ice cream cone Souta had dropped in the shrine about a week ago.  
  
For Inuyasha, his family was more like a paper weight on top of a paper you needed. It was quickly discarded in favor of what you wanted to read. Nice to look at, but not something you wanted in your way.  
  
He easily scaled the lip of the well, reaching down to scratch Buyo's ear while he waited for Kagome. Something was off here....  
  
"Hey Kagome?" He sniffed the air, just to make sure. No there was something wrong. The scent of her family was old, not like it should have been with them going in and out of the house everyday. They'd been here not to long ago, but they weren't /here/. Just Buyo.  
  
"Your mother didn't say anything about not being here, did she? Or your grandfather? I can't smell them."

Kagome shrugged as she pushed herself out of the well, feet making damp imprints on the thin sheet of dust over the weather-beaten planks. It was a wonder they hadn't buckled over so much weight for so many years.  
  
"Nope."   
  
Why would they have left? They hadn't said anything, hadn't hinted, hadn't even made the slightest indication. That was either terribly inadvertent, or very deliberate.  
  
"She didn't mention anything about being gone ... but if they /are/, I guess they expected me to come back late enough that it would've seemed like nothing had ever happened..."  
  
It was only a mild irritation that buzzed through her throat as she realized that they didn't want her to come along -- or that they didn't want to trouble her with their own little escapade. Clearly Kagome was just so /terribly/ involved with her own problems. Hopefully it wasn't that important ... it couldn't be that important ...  
  
...it probably wasn't that important.  
  
/Hopefully/.  
  
Kagome smiled at him faintly as she walked towards the exit of the chibi shrine.  
  
"--I bet they left a note or something. Even so, we can still get dried off."

"Dry sounds nice," he said in all obviousness, grimacing as he pulled a twig out of his hair. "Clean sounds nice too...."  
  
The hanyou hoped they really /had/ left a note, really /were/ okay. He may not have been best friends with her family, but he didn't want them hurt or in trouble, either. They meant something to Kagome, so they meant something to him, too. Even if that something was just to keep her from worrying.  
  
They wouldn't just up and leave without leaving anything, would they? No, they were more responsible than that. Weren't they? Walking out of the chibi shrine with Kagome, he tried opening the door, only to find that he couldn't.  
  
Well, if something terrible had happened, they'd obviously found the time to lock the door.  
  
"Kagome, do you have a key or something? They locked it."

"Uh...I think Okaa-san hides one around here in case I forget..."  
  
Her eyes scanned the familiar surroundings until she finally walked over to an overly conspicuous stature of Buddha in the middle of a small shrubbery. Lifting it up, a very dusty key was produced from within its hollow depths. Giving a slight shrug, she turned the lock. A rush of stale air hit her in the face, no whirring of fans audible. Just dead silence.  
  
It had been so long since she'd walked into the house to find it entirely empty. Souta always had left on one of his game consoles...or Grandpa had left on a random CD of monks chanting. Pulling tangles out of her matted hair with a wince, Kagome stepped into the living room and unconsciously flipped on the light.   
  
Bulbs flickering into existence, and the blades whirring dismally, it felt a little better to be in such an empty house. No note was visible as of yet, and so her nervous reflex restarted and she began to chew her lip. It was just like her family to get abducted by bloodthirsty youkai, holding them for ransom.  
  
"Anybody home?" She called for good measure.


	17. Interlude Numero Dos

Well now...there is currently an R rating.

Let's think of the many reasons there could be an R rating.

;;; Showers. Think of that too. So. I will clearly label when things get steamy – but I wanted you to be forewarned anyhow. Fluff is necessary. I keep rereading the beginning of this story and it makes me die a little.

Angst owns you and your shoes! -dance-

...so. Yes. Fluff overload ahead. Anchors away.


End file.
